Anti-vaxxers Dox a Child Critic

The anti-vaccination movement was dealt a serious blow recently that has them scrambling. What is it? Yet another peer-reviewed study confirming that vaccines don’t cause autism? Yet another epidemic of unvaccinated babies dying from whooping cough? Jenny McCarthy getting another botox treatment while complaining about the evils of injecting people with toxins? No, so much worse than any of that: a 12-year old made a 2-minute YouTube video making fun of them. Surely this is the worst thing that’s happened to the anti-vaccination movement since…well, since vaccines came along and stopped everyone from dying of preventable diseases, I guess.

Marco Arturo is a hilarious little kid living in Mexico who decided to make a video showing all the evidence he could find for the idea that vaccines cause autism. He then shows off a folder full of blank pages, and says there is none. That’s it! He’s cute and funny and charming, though okay, if you don’t believe what he’s saying, I can see how you might find him to be a bit smug. But still, he’s 12. If you don’t agree with a 12 year old, you can either present your reasoning for why he’s wrong, or you can just ignore him, because he’s 12. It’s unfortunately very easy to ignore people just because they’re kids, so you could certainly take advantage of that fact to just wait for him to fade from the public eye.

The anti-vaxxers decided to take a different tactic. One popular anti-vaxx blogger is Levi Quackenboss, ironically not her real name. I say ironically because she decided to dig up everything she could find about Marco and post his parents’ names, hometown, and place of employment, and then concoct a conspiracy theory about how he’s a pawn of his parents and his government. Oh, and the antivaxxers didn’t forget to throw in a bunch of racism about the fact that he’s Mexican, claiming that he can’t possibly be intelligent and interested in science because Mexicans are all uneducated savages.

And of course, then there are the common slurs and threats of violence. They call Marco an “ignorant dick,” a “pretentious little shit,” and a “moron,” and say they want to “punt him in the jugular” and “throat punch him.”

They’ve also tried to come at Marco on his Facebook page. One anti-vaxxer challenges Marco to get 1,000 vaccines in one day if he thinks they’re so safe. Marco responded with a challenge of his own, for the anti-vaxxer to eat 10,000 apples in two hours if apples are so safe, or drink 1,000 liters of water, or take 3,000 Tylenol pills, or a billion slices of vegan cheese. Holy shit, mic drop. Basically, the anti-vaxxers are fighting a 12-year old and they’re losing, even though they’re fighting dirty.

Give Marco some help by liking his Facebook page and letting him know that he has the talent and drive to keep communicating science. We need more kids like him in the world, and we can’t let pseudoscientists drive them away.

Rebecca Watson

Rebecca leads a team of skeptical female activists at Skepchick.org. She travels around the world delivering entertaining talks on science, atheism, feminism, and skepticism. There is currently an asteroid orbiting the sun with her name on it. You can follow her every fascinating move on Twitter or on Google+.

2 Comments

But that’s how it is, though. Obviously if you’re brown you can’t possibly care about science, and must use special ‘ways of knowing’ instead.

A woman I know actually regularly complains about how the ‘regressive left’, as she puts it, thinks that just because she’s an Indian, that means she’ll be with them on whatever ridiculous ideas they have.

Therapeutic Touch seems to roll on. Untroubled by the fact that an 11 year old could design and execute a pretty damn’ convincing experiment to demonstrate that the ‘energy field’ in question is imaginary.

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The Skepchick Network is a collection of smart and often sarcastic blogs focused on science and critical thinking. The original site is Skepchick.org, founded by Rebecca Watson in 2005 to discuss women’s issues from a skeptical standpoint.